Not Really Resolutions

Making actual resolutions is too hard, and I don't really have anything that I feel passionately enough about to resolve to do it other than the things I'm already doing with my life anyway. But here are some things I'd like to do in 2013...

• Learn more coding. Preferably via cute free online games.
• Learn more guitar. See above.
• Return books to the library in a timely manner. This also requires reading them more quickly and not taking a whole semester to get through one fun novel.
• Oefen nederlands. (That's practice Dutch!)
• Don't worry about figuring out "What I'm Doing With My Life." I'm graduating, but I don't have to sort the whole rest of my career out by the end of the semester, so I shouldn't let it freak me out!

Wishing everyone lots of adventures and love and excitement in 2013!

ALL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY in one graph

One thing that really baffled me about Europe was just how much damn history there is. Like... Virginia, for as long as it's had political boundaries of the type I recognize/am required to study, has always been Virginia. West Virginia left, but for as long as it's been a state it's had kind of roughly continuous boundaries and such. That is so not the case in Europe. Any given spot was probably controlled by the Vikings and the Romans and the Normans and the Holy Roman Empire and god knows who else; one town could have been part of a dozen different political territories throughout it's history. I find this incredibly confusing.

So in light of this, I have no idea how this graph works, but I think it's kind of nifty all the same.

How do you even calculate GDP in the year 1000? Does "Italy" mean the Roman Empire and all its territories when that's relevant, or just modern-day Italy? Where the hell are, like, the entire continents of Africa and South America? I have no clue. World history is mind-blowing and graphs are cool.

It Followed Me Here!

So in Ireland there's this TV show called Take Me Out, in which one guy gets his pick from 30 potential women to go on a date with. He describes himself, and if they're not interested they turn their little podium light off, and when he's done describing himself he picks of the remaining girls. Awkwardness and sexism ensue.

There are many, many things I miss about Ireland, but Irish reality TV is absolutely not one of those things. I think I watched one episode and walked away deeply relieved that we don't do that nonsense in America.

So imagine my woe when my little sister turned on the TV tonight and said "IT'S THAT AWESOME IRISH SHOW." Yes, we now have Take Me Out here in my country. It followed me. I am so sad.

Bike Advice

Found via Brain Pickings - a list of don’ts for female cyclists, from 1895. "Don't faint" seems to be particularly good advice, and I want to know what this person saw to make them feel the need to warn women against striking matches on their butts or screaming at cows.

• Don’t be a fright.
• Don’t faint on the road.
• Don’t wear a man’s cap.
• Don’t wear tight garters.
• Don’t forget your toolbag.
• Don’t attempt a “century.”
• Don’t coast. It is dangerous.
• Don’t boast of your long rides.
• Don’t criticize people’s “legs.”
• Don’t wear loud hued leggings.
• Don’t cultivate a “bicycle face.”
• Don’t refuse assistance up a hill.
• Don’t wear clothes that don’t fit.
• Don’t neglect a “light’s out” cry.
• Don’t wear jewelry while on a tour.
• Don’t race. Leave that to the scorchers.
• Don’t wear laced boots. They are tiresome.
• Don’t imagine everybody is looking at you.
• Don’t go to church in your bicycle costume.
• Don’t wear a garden party hat with bloomers.
• Don’t contest the right of way with cable cars.
• Don’t chew gum. Exercise your jaws in private.
• Don’t wear white kid gloves. Silk is the thing.
• Don’t ask, “What do you think of my bloomers?”
• Don’t use bicycle slang. Leave that to the boys.
• Don’t go out after dark without a male escort.
• Don’t without a needle, thread and thimble.
• Don’t try to have every article of your attire “match.”
• Don’t let your golden hair be hanging down your back.
• Don’t allow dear little Fido to accompany you
• Don’t scratch a match on the seat of your bloomers.
• Don’t discuss bloomers with every man you know.
• Don’t appear in public until you have learned to ride well.
• Don’t overdo things. Let cycling be a recreation, not a labor.
• Don’t ignore the laws of the road because you are a woman.
• Don’t try to ride in your brother’s clothes “to see how it feels.”
• Don’t scream if you meet a cow. If she sees you first, she will run.
• Don’t cultivate everything that is up to date because yon ride a wheel.
• Don’t emulate your brother’s attitude if he rides parallel with the ground.
• Don’t undertake a long ride if you are not confident of performing it easily.
• Don’t appear to be up on “records” and “record smashing.” That is sporty.

It's midway through exam week...

Do you know where your college student is?

Here's some lovely things I've been reading between studying for Women in US History Between 1600 and 1870...

The Atlantic has a detailed article about... pubic hair. Is women having pubic hair becoming a thing of the past? This article is fantastic both because it is highly informative, and because it has a truly incredible variety of euphemisms for pubic hair which I will immediately be adding to my vocabulary.

Time has an old but lovely article on fanfiction, in Harry Potter and other fandoms, particularly the legal and ethical questions about using someone else's character. It makes me want to read fanfiction instead of studying.

And finally, Danah Boyd asks some very difficult questions about media discussion of LGBT bullying. It's a good read, if not super-depressing. On a related note, what do you think of Facebook's new suicide prevention tool? I think it's pretty neat.

In Which Doctor Who Makes Marriages Stupid.

So, uh, I watch Dr. Who. So naturally, I watched the season finale last week, and it was pretty cool. Kinda confusing. I really had just given up on understanding River Song.

Fortunately, Jess Zimmerman laid out for me quite clearly what the problem with River Song is. It's not that she's terribly confusing what with the time travel. It's that, for a character with such epic back story and so central to the plot, she doesn't actually get any character development of her own; she just fills whatever holes in the Doctor's story need filling. Which is why the random marriage at the end of this season just seemed so strange.

She also mentions, briefly, what I thought was the most annoying part of the season: When Amy's lost faith in the Doctor is indicated by him referring to her by her husband's name. "When you're sort of in love with me, you get to keep your own name, but when you're going to stop waiting and strike out on your own? Oops! Married name time!" Rawr.

This ends my geeky rant. We now return to our regularly scheduled programing.

Happy Constitution Day!

Did you know it was Constitution Day? I didn't, either, until just now. And then I decided that if Constitution Day is to be a proper holiday, and not just something Senator Byrd made up, it should have cake.

There! Consider the Constitution celebrated. Though maybe it'd be better to have cupcakes. We could have different flavors for each amendment! The 19th could be strawberry, because it's related to women, and therefore must be pink.

Summer of Stash-Busting!

Crossing some wires here from my blogging life to my crafting life...

I've been undertaking an epic project I call the Summer of Stash Busting, in which I take all the strange little bits of fabric I've accumulated over the past several years and make them into things. The goal was one project a week, and while I haven't managed quite that, I've come pretty close! So at halfway through the summer, I wanted to do a round-up of my projects so far and share it with everyone.

Week 1: Circus flags
Week 2: Scrappy quilted coasters
Week 3: Rainbow potholder
Week 4: Ruffled pencil skirt

Week 5: Pieced-edge tea towel
Week 6: Another pieced-edge tea towel
Week 7: Rainbow checkbook cover and pencil case

So there you have it! That's what I've been up to this summer. We now return to your previously scheduled programming.

Are YOU a Good Wife?

Being a woman in college, I know what my real goal ought to be: my MRS. Screw this BA in Religion and Women's Studies nonsense, I have my priorities straight. (Haha, straight...)

So, um. Here's a chart from the 1930s about being a good husband or wife. :D





So both of them have to be good conversationalists. He shouldn't bring unexpected guests over, but she'd damn well better be ready for them anyway. Also, I want to know why "seams of hose often crooked" is on there. Like, really, 1930s husbands, are you driven to distraction when your wife doesn't put on her tights carefully?

Phones...

I was thinking about etiquette last night, so when there was a blog post in my google reader titled "It's Not Just Rude, It's Ruining Your Brain," I got all excited. Alas, it was not about "please" and "thank you" and proper addressing of e-mails, it was about smart phones and students who have them out in class or while socializing.

This is the way kids these days think. My administration calls it "the millennial student" and apparently we are supposed to cater to their habits. ... [but] multitaskers are not only bad at multitasking, but they are also worse than nonmultitaskers on every individual one of the tasks.

That's the millennial student and it isn't something to be catered to. Put the damn iPhone down before you make yourself stupid.

While I love the quote "put the damn iPhone down before you make yourself stupid," and wanted it on my blog, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I hate being on my phone when I'm trying to do something else - if someone texts me while I'm in serious homework mode, I will literally throw my phone across the room rather than check it. (Ask my roommate.) On the other hand, it took me 15 minutes to start this blog post because I had to read other things, watch a YouTube video, play a game and a half of Solitaire, and help someone who came into the office. So, uh, guilty.

In a less harsh post also about etiquette, Jennifer Grayson talks about how giving up her Blackberry for a year helped her to appreciate flowers and trees and stuff. Kind of corny, but related and also kind of sweet. But when I'm locked in a windowless basement office or at my desk in my dorm, there are no flowers to enjoy instead of technology, and the green background of the solitaire game or the pictures of flowers on my phone background are kind of like nature.

I'm not sure if I had a point with all this. Just something I'm thinking about this morning. I'm going back to playing solitaire now.

Pretty Things

This blog has been tragically quiet for a while, and I'm afraid I have no profound political insights to share today. Moved by the spirit of being locked in the library researching on a beautiful day, and reading depressing budget stories, I am going to write a post of things which are awesome.

1) It was warm and sunny today! Words cannot express how happy this makes me, so I'll just say it again. It was warm and sunny today!!

2) I went to a fabulous concert last night in DC, still managed to get a decent amount of sleep before class this morning, and walked around all day with fabulous songs stuck in my head.

3) The crocuses are blooming on the hill which my dorm is at the bottom of and the rest of campus is at the top of. I swear every time I walked up and down those 55 stairs to my dorm today, there were new flowers blooming, and I anticipate that the walk to class and back is going to get very beautiful as spring gets closer.

(See also: The shoes, dining hall mug, and spray can tied with pretty ribbon to the tree that stretches over the staircase. It's like some charming hipster Christmas tree ornaments.)

4) Thinking in Spanish. I may not have finished my Spanish homework for class today, but I could come up with a whole lot of grammatically-correct excuses!

5) Getting a valentine from "Casanova" in my mail box. (It had a Hello Kitty sticker.)

And so, today is awesome. We'll get back to your regularly scheduled blogging when I'm not drowning in homework. (So maybe never. Who knows?)

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2011, everyone!

I got my wisdom teeth out this week, and so have spent much of this lovely new year on the couch. Here's some things I've been reading over the past few days:

Four flipped social paradigms for 2011 from TreeHugger. According to them, in the coming year, smaller, more energy-efficient houses will become desperately sought after, and hipsters will again be cool.
Related notes:
Apartment Therapy's roundup of the best use of teeny tiny studio apartment spaces of the year. It is probably weird, and entirely this website's fault, that my dream house is less than 500 sq. ft.
New York Magazine's very helpful article explaining exactly what a hipster is.

The GOP Needs to Tell the Truth about their Views on the Constitution from ThinkProgress. Full of links to scary quotes with Republicans suggesting that things like child labor laws, minimum wage, paper money, and a Department of Education are unconstitutional

Kathryn Gray, 10 years old, Discovers Supernova. As someone who just got a star chart on my ipod and stares back and forth between that and the (mostly starless) sky here, I gotta say that this little girl is probably the coolest ever.

A Scarf a Day for January. I've been knitting non-stop lately, but this woman is way ahead of me: She's making a different crazy scarf every day for the month of January. Themes so far include LongCat and internal organs.

Weird.

Something I was just pondering at work...

A significant amount of my daily interactions with friends and family, much of my writing, and almost all of my online reading takes place on webspace run by one of two giant corporations that both probably pretty much have the entire story of my life saved in a database somewhere in China or the Midwest or something. Google and Facebook have between them all of my photos from the past five years or so, much of my writing and blogging, records of who I'm friends with and what I like, everything I've ever searched for online, random family home movies on YouTube... And these two massive coorporations who combined have all this information about me hate each other and periodically duke it out in epic battles of one-upsmanship.

That's really bloody weird. That's, like, the plot of a sci fi novel right there, except for the part where it's currently normal.

Am I the only one who finds that thinking about this stuff makes my head spin?

Fun with Neurotheology

Just now I was doing my Neurotheology reading, which explained that "strong religious belief" was considered a mental disorder until 1994 by the American Psychiatric Association.

I promptly ran to Google and discovered that homosexuality was only considered a mental disorder until 1973.

While I realize that any proposed divide between "gay people" and "religious people" is a super-false dichotomy, I still happily announced to my assembled friends that the gays won this one, and hurried to write this blog post.

Procrastination, how I love you. Back to reading!

Obama meets with BP Executives

Posted in its entirety from Culture of Truth, because this is just too awesome not to share:

Obama: Hello. My name is Barack Obama. You killed the Gulf of Mexico. Prepare to die.

BP: Hi Mr. President. We'll try to pay for the clean up-

Obama: Hello!! My name is Barack Obama! You killed the Gulf of Mexico. Prepare to die!

BP: Naturally we'll meet our legal obligations-

Obama: Hello!! My name is Barack Obama!! You killed the Gulf of Mexico!! Prepare to die!!

BP: we'll try to make restitition to the people affected-

Obama: Hello!! My name is Barack Obama!! You killed the Gulf of Mexico!! Prepare to die!!

BP: Will please you stop saying that?!?

Obama: Offer me anything I want!

BP: yes billions, free oil, an apology, anything... just don't kill us!!

Obama: I want the Gulf Coast back you son-of-a-bitch!

Aww, now I'm excited for Fencing Club Princess Bride Movie Night AND cleaning up the Gulf!
(If you also thought this was funny, you should go leave some comment-y love on the original post!)

Cookies!

I have so far managed to resist the urge to fill this blog with all my crazy recipes, gardening plans, etc. But I've found a solution to a genuine eco-problem I have, and it involves cookies! Victory!

So, if you're like me and drink your weight in tea on a regular basis, what to do with all those leftover boxes? I've seen them used to hold ribbons, which is cute, and you could always just recycle them, but this is my new favorite.



Now next time I finish a box of tea, I also have an excuse to make cookies for someone! Yaay! <3

Food-Flags

This little game made me smile, so I had to share... flags made out of food from the country! The Australian pie-flag was my favorite. Hop over to Flavorwire to see the rest!

LOLpatriarchy

Funny thing I noticed today:

When my biology textbook needs a photo of a person doing something for an example, they include people of various genders and races.

But when they need a drawn diagram with a generic symbol for human-ness, they use a white male.

(This is not entirely fair. I was flipping through the book just now, I found the later chapters about human organ systems featured diagram-people of all colors and even a few ladies. However, these chapters aren't covered in my class, and for all the chapters on genetics and evolution our diagram-people were exclusively white men. I am now kind of curious as to why the diversity of life they keep talking about doesn't show up until Unit Six. However, I am pleased to know I will be less annoyed by the diagrams in Human Biology next semester.)

Gone Novelin', BRB

It's National Novel Writing Month! Blogging will be slim to none for the rest of November while I crank out 50,000 words.

Quote of the Day: Idiot Edition

From the Louisiana justice of the peace who is refusing to marry interracial couples:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

...Excuse me? Can someone explain to me on what planet that isn't racist?

Via Shakesville.